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As , the United States, potentially heads into another forever war I can only think of this quote.
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Someone was asking in a thread what kind of people could work for ICE right now.
I think it's a good time to remember that the image above are the people who put children into gas chambers.
When I was little, I asked what kind of person could work at a concentration camp.
The answer to both questions I think is "normal people who have accepted the dehumanization of another group of people."
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I found Tron Catalyst deeply underwhelming on a lot of levels. Mike Bithell has some neat ideas, but is a poor writer. Each time I leap into the indigo waters of his Tron games, I shatter my shins because it's only ankle deep.
I think it annoys me because he tries to make something deeper. And it's not. I hate the shallow-ass way he does "diversity." You need more to your character than their minority traits. We learn nothing about Exo. Her traits are: Black, woman, courier, protagonist (and I got to flirt with a woman one time before it was permanently erased). It's like Exo didn't even exist before booting up the game.
Does she like her job? Is she saving up to go elsewhere? What were her goals before becoming a time goddess? Does she buy into the doomsday glitch rumors that everyone else seems to know? What did she think of Core before getting arrested -- maybe lukewarm, or uninformed, or trusting? Maybe she already harbored disdain for them since outlawing lightcycles; as a courier I imagine that was quite a blow. Does she have no connections prior to the game? You telling me she's never heard of Automata or Reset? It would have brought SO much more depth with just that simple change: "Oh yeah, I've heard of [your group here], they're [incorrect boilerplate opinion here that gets more nuanced over the course of the game]" or whatever. She meets everyone for the first time enough times that there could have been some, I dunno, character development there beyond "yeah I've done this before." Mike Bithell tells me she trusts these programs but he definitely doesn't show me. Surely she's heard of the games at least---maybe experiencing them first hand could have been enlightening. "I thought it was volunteer, they say it's volunteer..." Make her a person, make her someone who exists outside of the viewer/player/reader's eye.
And that's not even touching the boring as hell dialogue. God. Every single sentence is doing exactly one job and it's exactly what it says on the tin. No foreshadowing, no beautifully blended exposition, no worldbuilding except if you explicitly ask for it, nothing. At least we get every single beat for beat goodbye sequence though!! Ugh. If there was any subtext it was solely in Bithell's head and we aren't given access to it.
And I don't believe these things can be blamed on low budget. Games like Night in the Woods, Tacoma, Gone Home, etc do a masterful amount of worldbuilding and characterization with a fraction of the writing.
I suppose it's easier to list the things I did like about the game:
- lightcycle was fun - i ran into a lot of things but the lightjet was enjoyable - Query's voice - some of the art - that blink-and-you-miss-it container marked kflynn/storage/bin/permanentserver or whatever it was (an ounce of foreshadowing yayyy!!!) - the handful of references to better Tron stories but alas, a nostalgia button push does not a good story make - the antifascist vibes even though the execution was deeply lacking (like seriously crack open any edition of Clarkesworld and you're bound to find a short story pulling it off better)
#sorry kinda but not really tbh. i could've been cattier.#what gets me most is he acts like he's this superb writer that's this gift to the franchise and he's making these very rookie errors#i learned this stuff by googling 'how to write' and yknow reading a lot. and i just write fic that like... 10-20 people see haha#idk#tron catalyst
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Welcome to Kinktober 2025!
As there wasn’t an official Kinktober prompt list last year, we’ve put together an unofficial one for 2025, along with an AO3 collection. The graphics were all made by @latte-cucumber, and she's also made a banner that you’re welcome to use for your Tumblr Kinktober posts:
More information
Kinktober is an October prompt challenge that’s been running in one form or another since 2016. There are three prompts for each day in October, and the challenge is to use one (or more!) of the prompts to create something for that day. If you don’t want to use any of the three daily prompts, you can swap them out for the bonus prompts at the bottom of the prompt list.
Our askbox is open for questions about how the challenge works or what the prompts mean.
Prompts
Masturbation – Orgasm Control – Incest
Coming Untouched – Ageplay – Kidnapping
Threesome – Nipple Clamps – Alien Abduction
Voyeurism – Sounding – Hypnosis
Finger Sucking – Wax Play – Dacryphilia
Outdoor Sex – Humiliation – Intoxication
Blindfolds – Chastity – Bloodplay
Webcam – Figging – Cages
Exhibitionism – Shibari – Tentacles
Oral Sex – Punishment – Consensual Non-Consent
Come Licking – Handcuffs – Somnophilia
Sex Work – Kneeling – Sissification
Dildos – Dom Bottom/Sub Top – Medical Play
Omegaverse – Possessive Sex – Choking/Gagging
Semi-Public – Object Insertion – Sex Pollen
Remote Control – High Protocol – Fire Play
Messy Sex – Service Kink – Anal Hooks
Size Queen – Dom/Sub – Genital Torture
Creampie – Sensory Deprivation – Electricity
Mirror Sex – Golden Shower – Dubcon
Rimming – Forced Orgasm – Monsterfucking
Quiet Sex – Crawling – Gunplay
Biting – Praise Kink – Enemas
Anal Sex – Gags – Noncon
Double Penetration – Impact Play – Pillory/Stocks
Lingerie – Cuckolding – Sex Robot
Hair Pulling – Animal Play – Gangbang
Multiple Orgasms – S&M – Needle Play
Body Worship – Omorashi – Full-Body Bondage
Breeding – Fucking Machine – Degradation
Hot Tub Sex – Foot Fetish – Writer’s Choice
Bonus prompts:
Aftercare
Fisting
Wall Sex
Sugar Baby
Uniform Kink
Free Use
Temporary/Permanent Marks
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Perhaps it's just me. But right now, with the rapid global transition towards green energy, reforestation and conservation efforts, laws, genuinely crazy and huge innovations that can help us adapt to the changing world... it feels like we're on the right track.
Perhaps it's just me. But the geopolitical insanity that I see and learn from my peers all over the world, doesn't feel like the end. No, it... it feels like change. The last horrible and panicked gasps of the dying old, because it refuses to accept that it is not sustainable anymore, and the world is moving towards the better, through protests and unity and human goodness. I've seen this before - in stories from the older generation, and in history books.
But I also feel terribly guilty whenever I start thinking like that, for some odd reason? I feel guilty whenever I try and rationalize that despite it all, the world will continue existing, and even in the worst case scenario (which we already have avoided), there would be forests and oceans and species and biodiversity and ecosystems and people and cities and countries to see and love, because after all, nature is resilient and adaptable - just like our species are.
I feel guilty for feeling this cautious curiosity about what the future might hold for us, the bad and the good. Because I feel like I am obligated to be grieving and panicking and angry, like many people are - but that's just... so tiring.
Hi Anon,
This is going to be a long one because I think your ask gets at something difficult that I have a lot of thoughts about.
Your phrase “cautious curiosity” made me think of psychology researcher Jamil Zaki’s idea of “hopeful skepticism”. Which is not assuming that everything will inevitably get better, but open to the possibility that it could and curious to see the paths it might take to get us there.
Our society tends to view a cynical outlook as more intelligent or even more moral, but research shows that a cynical outlook actually makes people worse at predicting outcomes, worse at cognitive and problem-solving tasks, less likely to vote or protest, and even measurably harms their physical and mental wellbeing.
I think the guilt you describe is likely coming from the feeling that while we have been significantly improving conditions for humanity on this Earth and will likely continue to do so in the long run, in the present there are many real humans suffering--it can be hard and uncomfortable to hold these two truths together.
Even if this last dying breath is temporary and brief, it is destroying real people’s lives and many more live in fear that they will be next. The fact that child mortality has absolutely plummeted even just in my own lifetime is both a miracle of humanity and means little to the parent who has lost their child to a preventable death. To quote the philosopher Max Roser, “The world is much better; the world is still awful; the world can be much better.”.
You don't need to feel guilty for having hope for the future. Carrying feelings like hopelessness, grief, and fear all the time is entirely valid, but like you said it is also exhausting—and there is nothing inherently moral about emotionally suffering particularly if it’s harming your ability to live your life or take positive action.
You are right that we are still making progress in the correct direction in many ways. You are right that history is rife of examples of forward momentum provoking a reactionary backtracking but that the forward momentum usually ultimately prevails.
The key here, is to understand that the future path you describe is possible—even likely more probable than a lot of people think—but it is not inevitable. We still have to take action to make it happen. The arc of history bends towards progress only because so many millions of mostly unnamed unknown people have put the work in to bend it in big and little ways.
I’ll end with one of my favorite quotes from Rebecca Solnit is “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.”
Reminding others that progress is still happening and that there is hope for a brighter future is important work in getting members of your community to pick up their own axe and make that future happen. Hope in dark times is not just ok or reasonable--it is a previous, vital tool.
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#the current course of AI will lead to widescale cognitive collapse - moreso than attention-economy-based social media already has#Like. Look at this.#Fuck
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more quick sketch training, testing brushes and lighting
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springtail eating a slime mold
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Leonard McCombe Man Having His Hair Brushed by His Wife, Navajo Nation, Arizona 1948
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“Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.”
— Curtis Sittenfeld
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hey fun fact if you don't ship the thing you don't need to say it in the tags when reblogging art that ships the thing
"oh this is nice but morally repugnant to me," hello can I sell you some Indulgences so you may enter the kingdom of heaven unscathed by filthy filthy sexy art that some part of you really likes but is too afraid to admit, my venmo is-
#This didn't even happen to my art just something I reblogged#And I feel bad for that artist because a backhanded 'compliment' on your art is so demoralizing like honestly
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wow a cool parallel between these two episodes (head in my hands. again)
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Bro, we are cooked. The knight that dogs the prince's shadow like a dark and silent wraith just knelt to press his forehead to the prince's hand. Yeah, now he's uttering a prayer whose recipient is ostensibly God but in reality is the deified version of the prince that exists only in his mind. Aaand the prince just caressed his cheek to preemptively grant him absolution. I gotta... I gotta get out of here.
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This comic makes me so stupid emotional. She might have never known.
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